Former Obama Official Demands Twitter Ban Alex Jones

While Howard Dean says Jones advocates “nazism”

Former Obama official Emily Horne demanded that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey censor Alex Jones after Dorsey made a statement in which he said he wouldn’t be swayed by “outside pressure” to ban Jones.

Twitter is the only major social media outlet not to restrict Jones in the aftermath of a purge which began as a CNN lobbying campaign to ban its competition.

After Apple, Spotify, Facebook, YouTube and others banned Jones, Dorsey issued a statement declaring that Jones had not violated Twitter’s terms of service.

“We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified,” said Dorsey.

We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.

If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that’s constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That’s not us.

“If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that’s constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That’s not us,” he added.

Dorsey’s statement prompted fury from many on the left, including former assistant press secretary for the National Security Council under Obama and former Twitter communications director Emily Horne.

Also, FWIW I think this is the wrong call. Jones’ behavior isn’t a one-off. Twitter started examining offline behavior as a factor in verification last fall. If your policy doesn’t account for Jones-like activity on/offline then the policy isn’t serving a healthy conversation 2/4

If I still worked for you I’d have advised you to frame this as a sign that if current Twitter policies permit verified accounts to encourage followers to harass/harm people offline, then the policies aren’t working as intended & Twitter is looking hard at the way forward 3/4

Horne said Dorsey’s decision not to ban Jones was “the wrong call,” adding that Jones encourages his followers to “harass/harm people offline.”

Former presidential candidate and Governor of Vermont Howard Dean also jumped into the fray, accusing Twitter and by extension Alex Jones of ‘aiding and abetting’ violence, nazism and hate speech.

On other words hate speech, nazism and advocacy of violence will continue to be aided and abetted by Twitter and by extensionJack Dorsey and everyone else who works for Twitter. https://t.co/3dfHNqEMOL

Dean provided no examples of where Jones had endorsed violence, nazism or hate speech.

As we reported last night, top attorney David French wrote a piece for the New York Times in which he argued that Big Tech colluding to ban Infowars should leave people “deeply concerned” because it was a likely abuse of power.